Homosexuality and Love

Michael Kirby

“I received my first inkling of my own sexuality at about age 9. I was always precocious. In those days, it was not a very good discovery to find that one was homosexual. The afternoon tabloids were full of stories of entrapment and arrests of gay men in Sydney. They included some famous visiting artists, like Claudio Arrau, the great concert pianist.

In public schools in the 1940s and 50s, there was very little discussion about homosexuality or sexuality generally. Australia was pretty prudish back then. I have to admit that I was not conscious of much specific homophobia in my schools. By and large, sex was just a non-issue. Since then, I have discovered that things have deteriorated and that there is a lot of bullying at schools …”